“Boys have a strong response to authority figures who discipline them fairly, even if they hate the punishment,” Wiseman wrote in that excerpt. “People in positions of authority are important to boys. Boys accord an adult great respect if they believe in the person’s honor. They burn with resentment when they are under the control of an adult who abuses his or her authority and then take these experiences and often assume other adults will act the same way.”

Wiseman told The Atlantic, “Much of how our educational system is structured — from the way boys are taught academics, to the lack of training we give teachers to be ethical competent authority figures who not only know their subject matter but are engaging educators, to the way the minority of boys who do abuse power so often regularly get away or are disciplined in a way that only shows how powerless the adults are to truly hold them accountable — all too often schools are the place boys learn that the overall culture they will grow up in restricts their creativity and makes it as difficult as possible to come into their masculinity in healthy ways.”